I like these duplexes, where two houses are built along a party wall. Wrapping around onto Jefferson north of Shenandoah, the beautiful street wall, so well preserved along this stretch, continues.
Tag: McKinley Heights
Coming Soon
Update: The in-fill is now complete (fifth photograph down). The mansion or institutional building mentioned below was the Charless School (fourth photograph down). I’ve long been intrigued by the dense collection of houses built just after the Civil War to the northeast of the intersection of Gravois and Jefferson. What fire insurance maps and Compton and…
Southern McKinley Heights, Revisited
This strange little house above, tucked back the busy corner of Gravois and Jefferson; it appears on the Compton and Dry view. A surprisingly large number of those little houses survived the main wave of urbanization at the turn of the century. I’ve become increasingly interested in the early years of settlement in postbellum St….
Jules Street, McKinley Heights
Back in June I covered a secluded but unique corner of McKinley Heights, tucked back behind the commercial strips that intersect at Jefferson and Gravois. It turns out that uncharacteristically old quarter continues on up the isolated, one block Jules Street. More beauties await, again many decades older than the majority of the neighborhood that…
Southern McKinley Heights
Update: I revisited the area in June of 2020. Update: I revisited the area yet again in November of 2020 in two posts here and here. Tucked away, back on narrow little streets and alleys that have their own names, south of grand Russell Boulevard, an old, intimate part of the inner city of St….
Russell Boulevard, McKinley Heights
Leafy trees dominate the segment of Russell Boulevard that goes through McKinley Heights, a small neighborhood south of Lafayette Square. Expensive, lavish four-family flats point to the area’s relative wealth at the turn of the Twentieth Century, when many of these buildings were built. I’ve always been interested in why so much of the housing…
McKinley High School
Update: See new pictures of the high school from October of 2020 and June of 2024. McKinley High School, now a Classical Junior Academy (which apparently means it focuses on Latin) was the first pendent of two high schools built in the first decade of the Twentieth Century, the other being the former Yeatman/Central, now…
McKinley Heights, Revisited
I’ve always been intrigued by McKinley Heights; sandwiched in between Lafayette Square, Soulard and Benton Park, it gets forgotten by many people. Update: I photographed the building above in May of 2019. It was heavily damaged by fire on December 14, 2025. I photographed the houses below again in October of 2020. But obviously, due…
Gravois Avenue Vignettes
Has anyone every comprehensively studied Gravois Avenue through South City?? It’s a strange pastiche of old gas stations, storefronts, parking lots and a couple of houses mixed in between. When you come out on the north end of the street, the downtown and the Near South Side comes into view. One can only imagine the…
The Intersection of Jefferson and Gravois Avenues
Update: I went back and covered this intersection extensively in the late summer of 2020 with new and historic photos. See the houses to the southeast of this intersection from 2019. I was sitting at the intersection of Gravois and Jefferson last weekend, when I began to wonder what this crossing of two of the…